The City

Here we go.

This is the seed for the UK thread's City project. This is an evolving project, tracing the history and evolution of a fictional city throughout time. Membership and contribution to the project will vary with each epoch, as will design considerations and scope. New UK members will be welcome to contribute to a particular project, and the monthly meets will concentrate on contributing to the project wherever practical. Apologies, but if you're not in the UK, you won't be able to join in.

Each epoch will have a new ringleader to set the objectives, source reference material and steer the ship our civilization is taking. Limitations will be derived on the previous epoch, but from time to time, serious redefinitions should occur.

Each epoch will match the same set of requirements (or a subset thereof). At the moment this stands at the following list:

1. Generic designs (this is expected to be completed in sketched form primarily, and not expected to contribute heavily to finished work).

2. Depiction of parliament. Think broadly - this could be druids sacrificing someone, priests in conclave, warriors feasting, stuffy gents in suits, super-opulent royalty on floating chairs at the heart of a supernova, the sherrif getting drunk in the bar with his posse.

3. Depiction of a monument. Again, this could be stonehenge, the Eiffell Tower, the executioner's block, a natural formation, the land itself, a statue of the gods.

4. Depiction of a moment in history. This might be the founding myth (Romulus and Remus), or the day the enemy was repelled, or the day they were conquered. Or the day that women got the vote even.

By and large we'd like people to work in teams of two or maybe three, contributing to the evolution of the same image. Quality is still the goal, so inevitably someone will take the lead, but the idea is to force everyone to think differently about how they work and learn from each other directly. These groups will be formed anew every epoch, as I expect the team to change frequently.

The first epoch will be a stone age culture at the beginning of time. I'll be the ring leader and will post the basis here shortly.

Great to see this kicking into action. I'm envisaging people will need renewals of enthusiasm at stages, and there being problems that will take persistance. Thats probably the case with every project. ANYway were at the excited, fun, brainstorming stage at moment

Some wise stoneage druid once said, "Begin with the end in mind". Aim high. I'm seeing us creating a history here that will walk all over real history, heh even LOTR . Years down the line who knows how many imaginations this story will have captured.
Even if it doesn't reach these huge heights, it will have been many times stronger through aiming high.

ROAR i'm done with my inspiration battlespeach.

I don't mind what i'md doing, if it will help to have preferences though I can do that too.

Yeah, I need to add a thing about tools. I'll do that when I'm sober hehe. Tools, obviously, can be anything from campfires to cars to crossbows to blenders. Best not to get too pigeonholed thouh, Koshime

The First Epoch: Foundation

Right everyone, here it is. The official synopsis.

Before the time of the ice, there was a vast plain. The peoples of the plain were wide and varied, their seed not yet spent of its true potency. From the stocky vegetarians with their slow language, to the tall, folk who spoke with the wind, and to the long limbed forest dwellers who go by night, the land was filled with the children of Man.

The plain lies encircled by mountains, encroached on two sides by high waters - it's below sea level. The land is tortured by earthquakes and a mighty river of salt water spills down the mountain range's spine. The land is becoming less fertile, and the people are being squeezed closer together, forced to take to the hills.

In this climate, all the modern humans meet together at their holy place. This is a point in the saltwater river where there's a species of coral which has come inland and specialised - it grows into the air and the ground, forming a spectacular in the caves and hillside.

We enter the story 100 years later, when the five peoples who joined together at the Great Meeting have grown into a society. They're a society primarily led by female priestesses. Their religion is shamanistic, and they do practice self mutilation as a form of religious devotion. They don't yet have metal, live in mud and straw type dwellings and, but they're efficient hunters and combatants, as parts of the coral is very hard. The coral grows in salty water, liiiike.... blood! The female witchdoctors insert bits of coral under their skin, and it sometimes grows into their bones. This eventually kills them, but it's considered a holy way to die.

Their mythology / creation myth is a strange cyclic one, without a true beginning. The central idea is that the earth is their mother, which lays the egg of the moon every night, which hatches into the sun every day, and is buried again in her. This cyclic ideal is reflected in their design, both eggs and rebirth. Maybe the bodies of their holy women become living statues, as the coral keeps growing after they die.

So, I'd like to discuss the exact specifics, but here's what I want:

1.Their most holy place is a waterfall which has carved its way through the coral landscape. I'd like to see a ceremony of some kind being performed here.

2.Some designs based around the creation myth.

3.A depiction of the peoples coming together for the first time. I wanna see black guys with green eyes, blond american indian types, loads of shit. Later on, they've got similar ethnic diversity to Brazil - but at this point they're a big mixture of races.

4.Ok, ok, some spears and shit. Hunting apparatus, and idols of worship.

I'd liek to get things rolling a bit now, though the main focus will be on Sunday.

It'd be cool if people would start posting sketches, by the way. Nothing evolved, just quick stuff. Evolve bits if you want, but it's all about visual brainstorming. I'd then like others to grab them and do quick overpaints - developing the ideas more.

It's not about producing anythign finished at this stage, so everyone can contribute, however much they like. I'd like some ideas about the way the village is, the people look, etc, to start with.

I've tried not to formulate what it looks like in my head, as I could accidentally stamp my own imprint on it, and stop you guys creating what you want because I shackled it to my own vision. But here's a few very scrappy sketches I've done. Honestly, they're not anything designy, and I don't want them to guide you too much. It's just to get you DRAWING:

Impressive!, a very poetic introduction. Scanning throught it I can see there going to be no shortage of things to imagine. Choosing where to start is the hard part. I love the coral idea and I have a piece of stone coral around somewhere. Also I've got a bunch of books on ancient art and mythology etc. I'm not really sure about the biology of coral though, does it still grow outside water?, Does it turn to stone when disconnected from the main plant?
I'll try not to get too carried away with the story and actually make some sketches .

Um yeah... Dirty_c mentioned waterfalls... sorry guys, couldnt help myself. Gone for a slightly different style with this one, but yeah... im trying a few more of my old techniques and things. Also this is a little low on the concept side, high on the lets-just-paint side... sorry

not so sure about the coral - i did study it at some stage, but the point is that it's a weird evolutionary branch of coral, which didn't survive for very long. for obvious reasons This place is supposed to be a bit of a 'what if' - think of a place like the arabian peninsula now, or the land bridge between europe and the uk, or europe and greenland, and what weird stuff we might find down there if a civilisation had evolved there in the ten thousand years before it went under.

by the way, it's warm there, cause it's below sea level. So even though they're in the mountains, it's not terribly cold.

I've not really got many results to post as of yet. Learnt my first valuable lesson. Don't jump into history and mythology books. Somewhere along the line decided I was redisigning the universe. I need to be selective and just get on and start to draw things.

I've had some thoughts on the mythology though. Since the earth mother lays eggs I thought it might be represented as an animal. Somehow I came across turtles. They have very interesting shells and patterns, ancient wise slow creates, etc And a turtle can appear symbolically in design quite well.
Continuing this, if our civilisation believes the egg/moon hatching theory. Then they would very seriously believe the earth is a being. So instead of them seeing it as a flat, or spherical planet, they see it as a turtle, swimming about in the blue sky / sea.

Perhaps they could then refer to different locations to the turtles body parts, different land masses are different sections of a shell maybe.
What would the holy place where the coral grows be? The holy place could be where the source of the fertillity of the land. You know what i'm thinking

One of the main problems our civilisation faces is the land becoming less fertile, the earth mother becoming less fertile, perhaps until she wont be able to lay eggs anymore. So the priestesses must offer a solution to this, perhaps they claim they can appease and comfort her, through rituals or sacrafice.

So here came my one and only quick drawings, of initial ideas for a ceremonial knife. I like the idea of the coral being implemented in there objects. Especially since there is a vast variety of colours and shapes. When it turns to stone it can be very jagged and sharp. Could different corals have supposedly different properties? And so selecting the corals the priestesses put inside them could have different reasons.

I wont be offended if you throw any of the ideas away, just initial ideas. I might be getting to carried away with the story. I want to do MORE DRAWING!

Good god mr harry, you're doing very well. Not sure how your turtle fits in with the white, spherical egg. But hell, one lot might be like catholics, and the other like protestants, right? Different strokes for different folks.

I love every idea you've come up with.

Sorry no drawings from me, I just went to the Beastie Boys at Wembley Arena - rockin.

I think animals / beasts is going to appear in the early stages. Are we creating new animals or is it realistic? Animals will be one source of there food (also don't forget fishing) and their mythology has to have developed from observation of animals. Which animals are hunted? which animals are sacred? which animals do they fear? etc

If it is realistic animals, perhaps we could still include enlarged ones.
Heh I had an idea for a full size spear made from a giant feather. IMAGINE the bird that came from, imagine what it took to get it.

Um, I'm not 100% sure on the animals. I guess what I'd like to see is very familiar animals. Like weird deer with strange curling horns, and monkeys with strangely marked fur, and mastodons (mammoths) and shit. It's really supposed to be earth, just with a few strange evolutionary things popping up. I realise this sounds a bit restrictive, but I'm trying to concentrate the amount of design that goes on into a few areas - and animals and aliens tend to take over the design process when they're introduced. So great idea with the spear, and things like that. Definitely a great way to design implements and things - like maybe their housing incorporates tusks and the bones of whales which were washed down the river from the sea, etc.

Though adding a task with them hunting an animal we've designed is a cool idea - good way to introduce the tool designs as well. So that's in.

Righto, kinda cheating to paint over my own pic, but here's a quick idea for one of the priestesses. I'm not 100% happy with the literal approach to the coral implantation - I think it should be less horn-like and much more interesting, but hey, I was working with an old sketch.

That's some interesting shit there, Paddy. You're definitely using strong colours and focussing on the design of the ornamentation and decoration, which is what I'm after.

Another thing to think, people: body paint. Doesn't take much material for a culture to do this, and it can have interesting colours and properties - think ground-up quartz reflecting small bits of light. And think about the materials they consider precious - shell fragments which have washed down to them via the river, for instance.

Oh, I should explain. The thing on the left has a bulb at the bottom, made from the bladder of some animal. The top part is a hollow bit of coral. They're a shamanistic culture, so they're inclined to indulge in a bit of 'spirit walking'. ie: getting rat arsed and talking to invisible people So the bulb is where the drugs go haha.

THe thing on the right is made from an antler and various pieces of coral, with red fabric wrapped round for holding it. It's a ceremonial tool called an ugh'sh'anka, which is used for poking people.

hahaha excellent! You turned my scribbles in a leathal drug bulb. My thoughts keep flipping back this project whenever I've got some time to kill, but i'm going to make so more drawings soon. Hope you have a good meetup and get loads more drugs oriented designs.

WoW... this is an interesting thing, lots of the stuff is looking pretty good. If u guys dont mind i wouldnt mind thowing in some ideas and so on, i like doing a bit of everything and the idea/story looks really cool.

Only 2 question, wha is the overall outcome of the project? I mean do we produce a final piece image that depicts that era of the civilisation or is just gonna go on as the thread gets older our civilisation gets older and we draw ideas etc about the evolving civ.

Do i have to do anything special since its just UK? like come to special meetings or anything. Im only 16 so i dont perticurly wanna have to meet up with random people from around the uk and stuff. hope u understand, cus i dont know anyone on CA personally.

Morning!!

Right everyone. For those of you sitting at home saying "shit, I'm too late, I've overslept" (acuna, this probably means you) don't stress. I woke up at 11.44 and there's as yet nobody here. Everyone's overslept. So do get your lazy arse down here, mofo, and do be drawin sometin good

My number/s 077 9360 6466. Don't be nervous, give us a call if you're unsure or just wanna check out how it's going.

Concept: The shamanistic priestess, are entombed within a special cave, which comprised of a massive vault of coral formations, whereby they become statues near the end of their life period.

Due to the "blood pearls" ingested during their lifetime, and coral growths imbeded and calcification in their system, they eventually show signs of hardened skin, and disfigurement starting from their lower limbs.

Shaman priestess who have passed on their Epoch, know their time of death and are hence brought into these caves to become one with the coral....

This here picture is a 'God' figure religous people see whne the corel embedded in there skulls decide to rape the brain, little while after this happens people die.
So this dude is proclaimed Unuist, god of death.
Just a vision, kinda warped for the real guy.

took about.. ... erm... 1 hour on and off.

CnC welcome

Edit*** Can anyone recommand a hosting site that can support bigger reslos???

Its great to see the different approaches coming out of this so far.
Very nice BNB, again I love your style and line quality. Interesting pattern work, i'll influenced by this is any further drawings I do. One suggestion, that beak of doom could have been made a little clearer, either with some different pattern work or no pattern underneath it.

Koshime - Excellent paintings, you've opened up a whole darkness to this so far I hadn't thought about, maybe we could continue this darker side to the priestess's. There secracies and rituals and such.

I'm just dumping the rough sketches here to show i'm still thinking on it. Its too hard to discipline myself to do anything but a messy sketch, i'll need someone to give me a specific thing to work on.

The top image is a copy of a drawing of a totem from my Art of Warcraft book.

That bird doom pic thing is way out of its original reslo, i just can't get it to stay the size it should be, same size as the elephant one, but no, photobucket won't have it, can anyone help me here?
So ya, thats why its kinda unclear and i kinda shaded the beak in before i thought about patterns so its dirty.

Love the egg idea picture. I was thinking maybe Souls chosen to watch over the egg are shelled up inside the skulls. Watching over watever kinda egg it is. maybe priest found it, and believing so much in the egg theory claimed it was a 'God egg' sent via the gods, that will hatch into a demi god or ruler of some sort. then it just ends up being an egg of some fucking awesome kill ass powerful monster..big boo hoo for them!